Day Sixteen

Another day, another scare. I woke up around 6 am to some serious belly sensitivity. I went to bathroom, and after I got back in bed a nurse came in to see how I was. I told her about my belly and she said, “we’ve been waiting for you to call us about that.” I am on a couple different monitors at all times – one is for the baby’s heart rate, and the other is monitoring contractions and uterine irritability. The nurses can watch my monitors at their station down the hall. Apparently, they’d watched me have contractions while I slept, which was how they knew I was going to wake up not feeling great. The nurse checked my vitals and then felt around on my belly – it did not feel good. So she told me to make sure I let them know if there were any changes with how I felt, and let me try to sleep for a little while longer. With the stomach pain and the dark pink/light red amniotic fluid, I wasn’t able to get any meaningful sleep. I called Mike later in the morning and told him to come down so he’d be here when my doctors arrived.

My specialist arrived first. He did an ultrasound and found right away that my stomach was tender when he tried to push down with the sonogram wand. My wince of pain concerned him enough that he, too, decided to push around on my stomach with his hands to see if he could feel anything. He’s worried that I’m starting to show the early signs of infection. Luckily, everything on the ultrasound looked good as far as Madeline goes, and her heart rate is strong and steady. He ordered daily blood tests (OH GOODY) to check my white blood cell count. If the white cells are up, that is an indicator of infection. He then said that if I don’t have an infection, my body is making the transition towards labor. The hope is that the transition will take a little while and I can hold off labor for a little while longer. He said that it will be pretty obvious in the next few days how soon labor will be here. My OB came not long after my specialist left, and she echoed his diagnosis and went over a few scenarios with us about Madeline’s birth. After SHE left, my nurse came in to tell my that my white count wasn’t elevated. So, the good news is that I’m not infected yet. The bad news is that everything is still totally unknown. So frustrating.

Today was also the day of parent visits. Kathy and Tony came by again, as did my parents. We all hung out together for a little while, then Mike and his parents left to go back to our house (a new washing machine was being delivered), and my parents went to a football watching party and to pick up my brother at the airport. My parents eventually came back to watch the second half of the USC football game with me before they picked up Rigby and went back to their house. Rigby will be staying with them for the next few days, chasing rabbits and squirrels in their backyard. It’s like doggy summer camp!